Sri Lanka Parliament expected to be dissolved on Wednesday

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has informed some minority political parties that the parliament will be dissolved on Wednesday even as it was meeting to debate key electoral reforms.

Minority Tamil politician from the Tamil Progressive Alliance ( TPA) Mano Ganeshan told the press that the prime minister had indicated that the reasons to dissolve the parliament this week was because the mandate for the current government had expired in April and there were disagreements over key electoral reforms.

President Maithripala Sirisena had maintained that he would dissolve the parliament and hold a parliamentary election to elect a new government only once the key electoral reforms which are part of the 20th Amendment to the constitution are passed. However, political parties in the island nation including the ruling United National Party (UNP) have been in the recent weeks calling on the president to dissolve the existing minority parliament, stating that the government’s 100 days mandate which began on Jan. 8 had expired.

“The prime minister informed the TPA in a meeting held last week that the president had promised him that he would dissolve parliament on June 24. All the parties now want an election as the present government’s mandate has long expired,” Ganeshan said. Ganeshan further said that despite the 20th Amendment being debated in Parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday, there were many shortcomings in the amendment which is why the political parties were calling for an immediate election.